Astonished by the Turkish bomb @ Mado 雪糕咖啡店

Came all the way to Megabox for ice-cream, and ordered the ice-cream slices and the Turkish bomb to try.
Luckily there were vacant tables, however nobody cleared the tables, even after we ordered and sat down with the ice-cream. So had to clear it ourselves.

Despite that, I really liked the chairs and table, cute and elegant, cool blue in colour, and the logo was also classy in gold. My first impressions of Mado, was Italian rather than Turkish, and the style is so different to other Turkish things in town.

Back to the ice-cream, I really liked it, not sweet at all, and a strong milky taste with chewy texture. With other ice-creams, after a few spoons you would be left feeling with a numb mouth and freezing body, but I didn’t feel cold after eating it, and I could still taste each and element in the ice-cream.

The ice-cream slices were slightly sweeter than the scoops, probably because only sauces were added, so it needed to be sweeter or else it would be rather plain. I tried the original one and the almond one, both were chewy in texture, and the almond one had fine crunchy almonds in it like crunchy sugar.

Then came the Turkish bomb my favourite, plain ice-cream mixed with pistachios, apricots, and coconut. A creamy full bodied ice-cream just at the right sweetness. It takes a few seconds to get used to, the gooey texture, and the difficulties in trying to spoon it out. The Turkish bomb reminded me of the nougat, chewy but cold, full of ice-cream, and lots of texture, real coconut shreds, and the delicate apricot and pistachio.

The ice-cream owes it texture to the main ingredient “Mastic” a resin cultivated from Mastic trees in Greece.

Chewy elastic ice-cream @ Mado

My second returning visit to Mado, their ice-creams are the best, I ordered the Turkish bomb, lovely and chewy, not too sweet, plain ice-cream mixed with pistachios, apricots, and coconut. A creamy full bodied ice-cream just at the right sweetness. It takes a few seconds to get used to, the gooey texture, and the difficulties in trying to spoon it out. The Turkish bomb reminded me of the nougat, chewy but cold, full of ice-cream, and lots of texture, real coconut shreds, and the delicate apricot and pistachio.

The ice-cream owes it texture to the main ingredient “Mastic” a resin cultivated from Mastic trees in Greece. ( For the real greek ice-cream, however in this case Salep)

However they do not the taro milkshake they had before, which was nice.

Beef kofte @ Istanbul express

This was my regular lunching place a while ago, I would come here twice a week, but after it has been refurbished, I felt the food quantity has gone down, the portions are so small, small enough for people on diet.

The set included drink and soup, and now it only has a drink with it.
Also beef kofte, there used to be five in a plate, but now only four pieces.
The rice was not as good as before, it used to have nuts in it.

However the speed has sped up, used to wait ages for the food to arrive, now it is slightly more organized, before the meats are cooked, all the plates have been laid out with the sides and rice, then when the meat arrives, its ready to serve.
The waitors are also very efficient making sure you have the sauces and clearing the table when you have finished, so you can leave soon after the meal has finished.

Turkish food @ The Golden Horn Restaurant

Apart from Istanbul, this is another Turkish joint, I think its the same as Istanbul, the menu, the fonts etc are the same.

However I think the food is not as hot as it should be.
When I was ordering, I couldnt feel the heat from their open kitchen, so I wonder if the grill was on for the kebab meats.
The rice was slighty soggy.

 

 

Turkish food made simple @ The Golden Horn Restaurant

Two things I learnt today!!

Fact 1: The foam box doesn’t melt in the microwave.

I ordered an Iskender, and basically the guy put the ingredients in the white foam box and shoved it in the microwave.
I thought it was going to melt but it didnt!!

Fact 2: The Iskender is so simple to make, the ingredients are readily available from the supermarket!!

2 Slices of bread
Nestle original yoghurt
Tomato puree
Chicken!!!!!

All the guy did was diced the bread, placed it in the foam box, put some chicken on top, then tomato puree, and then the yoghurt and heated it through the microwave!!! :0
HEY PRESTO! ISKENDER is so easy to make!!

Also quite amusing, was given chopsticks and chinese plastic spoon by the turkish joint!!!

Mado's ice-cream @ Istanbul Express

After Mado’s closed down in Hong Kong,, I didn’t think I could taste the chewy ice-cream again!

Now Istanbul serves it, they serve the scoop and the slices.

The ice-cream seems to be made by Istanbul or imported but slightly different to the ice-cream at Mado’s, the textures is much more gooey and chewy.
The portion for one scoop was very generous, one big bowl! Either it was their generosity or either because of its elasticity it was difficult to scoop out resulting in a big scoop!

I got two scoops, savoury caramel and sweet walnut. I was impressed they were served in separate bowls so the delicate flavours wouldn’t be mixed together!
The sweet walnut was nice and gooey with bits of walnut, however the caramel tasted a bit off, sort of like overheated milk.

As well as a sweet dessert, it is a good remedy for GI upsets, slows down bowel movements, especially after eating chilli's!

Pistachio Baklava@ Istanbul

 

On my last visit, I had their Turkish ice-cream, since then have added another sweet item to their menu.

They have added the Baklava to the menu, it costs $42 for three.

Baklava (Greek:μπακλαβάς) is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey.

 

The size of the Baklava's were about 4cm x 4cm, the appearance looked like ordinary pastries with green pistachio filling in the middle.

 

The top of it was flaky, while the bottom layer was chewy, sticky and oozed with syrup.

In the middle there was moist grounded pistachios that was not sweet.

But overall, it was very sweet from the syrup soaked bottom layer.

If it were less sweet I would have liked it more or if there was cream to go with it.
For $42 it was slightly expensive considering it was just puff pastry, pistachio and syrup.